A building block?
In a comment, Pamela Kunz, MD, director of the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Conn., said that she would consider the results with regorafenib in this setting as statistically significant, but with questionable clinical significance.
“The median overall survival difference 0.5 months or about 2 weeks is very modest, especially when taking into consideration the side effect profile,” she said. “I think that regorafenib as a building block for the additional phase 3 study is more interesting.”
“There is data that suggests synergy between VEGF inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors, so I am eager to see the results of INEGRATE IIb [exploring regorafenib use with nivolumab],” Dr. Kunz added.
The study is sponsored by the Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group. Dr. Pavlakis reported relationships with Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Beigene, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai, Merck, Merck Serono, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, and Takeda. Dr. Kunz reported relationships with Ipsen, Novartis (Advanced Accelerator Applications), Genentech/Roche, Amgen, Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Natera, HUTCHMED, and Isotope Technologies Munich.
The Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium is sponsored by the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Society for Clinical Oncology, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, and the Society of Surgical Oncology.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.